BS”D
First of all Gershon Veroba puts out covers of secular songs and does not hide that fact. I choose not to listen to him but others are uplifted by hearing familiar songs with borderline parody Jewish words.
When Jewish words are set to a secular tune, the tune, which is value neutral, is elevated. It is the same idea as having kosher supervision and then making a brocho on canned vegetables processed in some factory in Asia where the locals are mamash oivdei avoida zoro.
We just don’t have enough composers to satisfy the needs of a B”H growing community. In fact, many of the Jewish composers do it in their spare time. Yossi Green is a successful medical supplies dealer; R’ Boruch Levine and R’ Shmuel Brazil are rebbeim in yeshiva as are R’ Boruch Chait and R’ Hillel Paley, and for that matter R’ Yirmiya Damen and R’ Y Tzvi Breier of Belz are in chinuch from what I remember. Even the first singers could hardly make a living from it; Reb Dovid Werdyger amu”sh was just as well known as the best travel agent in Boro Park as he was for his chazzanus and for Aderet.
A lot of the Chassidishe niggunim are based on local peasant somgs – and the Middle Eastern Sefardi and Iraqi songs including those used during tefila come from the popular music of the 30’s – 60’s in Lebanon and Egypt (Farid ul-Atrache, Mohammed abdul-Wahab, Om Koulthoum etc). I have one of the Chaim Israel albums which has an Arabic song from Syria on it and I was trying to write lyrics to it myself one long night (I’m better at parody stuff and got nowhere) – but someone else got to it before I did. In Morocco, many of the popular singers were Jewish themselves – and their songs are sung with kosher words in both Hebrew and Moroccan Arabic. Asher Mizrahi, a chazzan who wrote the words to Habibi (ya habibi hakel hamelech haneeman yishlah meshiho haneeman), also wrote secular music in Tunisia – he was a perfectly kosher Jew and I know of no one in their right mind who would censor Habibi – I used the tune, which is also secular, for kedusha once when I had the amud at kever Rabbi Meir Baal Haness.
Other kosher muzika mizrahit comes from secular muzika mizrahit which in turn is Greek or Turkish music – if you hear a sad sounding kosher song, chances are that the music is from the Turkish singer Ibrahim Tatlises, a known gangster who supports the Kurdish terrorists in Turkey! Doesn’t bother me in the least – I get a kick out of recognizing a Tatlises song with words like rachem na al amcha yibane beit hamikdash and when I find them I buy kosher mizrahit albums like that by the kilo.
There is a problem when, at chassunes, bands play secular music without words, often without the baalei simcha knowing where it comes from. Baalei simcha need to be aware of this and insist that it does not happen especially if guests include baalei tshuva who may recognize the original – often the baalei simcha themselves have no idea where the tune comes from.
Then, there are crossover singers, mostly in EY, who occasionally record secular songs with minor changes so as to get a wider audience – I have a couple of albums like that. In one case, the secular songs are in Arabic, Turkish and Greek – I understand a bissel Turkish so that when I have children I will not play that in the home because I don’t want them asking me what it means and then forcing me to lie and say I don’t know, but Arabic and Greek hardly affect my neshomo and after a while the songs are tiring and frustrating because I have no idea what is being sung. Still, I support these singers because their music can get people into Yiddishkeit just by being enjoyable to all (and not by mock spiritual fakerei either).
But if the words have been changed, it is what Judaism is all about – elevating the mundane and even the profane. And indeed the kavono of the singer means a lot – having met MBD I could not care for one moment that Yidden, which I love to get up and stretch to when I’ve been sitting down for too long, comes from a German Eurovision song.